RETROSPECTİVE INVESTİGATİON OF PATİENT FALLS IN A UNİVERSITY HOSPİTAL WİTHİN THE SCOPE OF PATİENT SAFETY

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate patient falls in a university hospital within the scope of patient safety according to variables such as age, gender, time interval when the fall occurred, clinic/polyclinic etc. where the fall occurred and the scene of the fall. Our study is a descriptive type restrospective study. The population of the study consisted of 280 inpatient/outpatient fall event notification records reported between 01.01.2020-31.12.2023 in a university hospital in Izmir. No sample selection was made in the study and the entire population was included in the sample. Institutional permission and ethics committee approval were obtained before the research. Analyses were performed with the SPSS Statistics 29 program. Data were analysed by descriptive statistics (number, percentage, mean, standard deviation), correlation test and Pearson chi-square test. The mean age of the patients who fell was 60.07±22.81 years, the majority were male (58.2%), and the age range of 65 years and older was the age group with the highest number of falls (52.5%). Among the patients, 91.1% were in the adult group and 8.9% were in the paediatric group. It was determined that patients fell most frequently while getting out of bed (45.4%) and in the patient room (54.6%). It was found that 78.9% of the patients had no damage as a result of the fall, 20.7% had mild injury, and 0.4% had severe injury. The fall rates of the patients according to years varied between 0.02% and 0.07%, and the highest number of falls occurred in the adult emergency department. It was determined that 22.1% of the falls occurred between 00:01-04:00. When the fall rates by branches were examined, it was observed that paediatrics and emergency department were lower than other branches (8.6%, 8.9%, respectively). It was observed that 54.3% of the patients who fell had a high pre-fall risk assessment. We determined that patients most frequently fell in the patient room while trying to get out of bed. Incident reporting systems that contain all the information needed about patient falls may provide the opportunity for corrective action for incidents that may occur due to falls. Educational interventions to increase the competence of healthcare professionals and preventive interventions to prevent inpatient falls should be prioritised in medical specialities with high fall rates.

Keywords

• patient safety, patient falls, adverse event reporting.